AFGHANISTAN
Not ratified ILO** conventions 138 and 182.
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ILO** estimated that 23.8 percent of children ages 10 to 14 years in Afghanistan were working in 2002. Child workers are reported to be numerous in rural areas, particularly in animal herding, and collecting paper and firewood. Children are also found working in the urban informal sector engaged in activities such as shining shoes, begging, or rummaging for scrap metal in the streets. There are reports that children continue to join or be forcibly recruited into armed insurgent groups.
The Government of Afghanistan, with considerable international assistance, is working to address child soldiering, child trafficking, and the commercial sexual exploitation of children. USDOL* is supporting a USD 3 million, 4-year project with UNICEF to rehabilitate former child soldiers. (UNICEF, Afghanistan,ChildTrafficking Reports,September25,2003)
ALBANIA
Ratified ILO** conventions 138 and 182. Click for ILO-IPEC participation status***
UNICEF estimated that 31.7 percent of children ages 5 to 14 years in Albania were working in 2000. The rate of child work is higher in rural areas than cities. Children, especially from the Roma community, work on the streets as beggars and vendors. Children can also be found laboring as farmers, shoe cleaners, drug runners, and textile and shoe factory workers.
The trafficking of Albanian children as young as 6 years old to Western Europe for prostitution and other forms of exploitive labor remains a problem.The Ministry of Public Order estimated that within an 8year period (1992-2000), some 4,000 children were trafficked from Albania, mostly for domestic work, begging and agriculture. Boys and girls are trafficked to Italy and Greece to participate in organized begging rings and forced labor, including work in agriculture and construction (ILO-IPEC, Combating the Trafficking in Children for Labour and Sexual Exploitation in the Balkans and Ukraine, Project Document, Geneva, September 2003, 7.) .
The government is also participating in a 3-year USDOL-funded* ILO-IPEC*** project to combat the trafficking of children for labor and sexual exploitation. The project is working in partnership with the Government of Albania and local organizations. (ILO-IPEC,Child Trafficking Project, project document. ILO-IPEC, ILO-IPEC*** Child Trafficking Project, technical progress report, 2. )
ALGERIA
Ratified ILO** conventions 138 and 182.
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Statistics on the number of working children under the age of 15 are not available. Children are found working on family farms and in informal trade.
Commercial sexual exploitation is a problem but the extent is unknown. There were reports about the kiddnappings of the young girls by the terrorist groups for forced labour.
ANGOLA
Ratified conventions 138 and 182.
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UNICEF estimated that 29.9 percent of children ages 5 to 14 years in Angola were working in 2001.There are a lot of children living in the streets because of civil conflict and poverty in Angola. (UNWire, Angola: Children Survive War as Scavengers, Prostitutes, online, United Nations Foundation, May 30, 2002, [cited June 4, 2004]; available from http://www.unwire.org/unwire/19990601/2898_story.asp.) Street children work as shoe shiners, car washers, and water carriers and homeless girls carry a high risk on becoming subject to sexual exploitation. Angolan children work in subsistence agriculture, as domestic servants, as street vendors and as beggars.
Child trafficking, commercial sexual exploitation, pornography, forced labor, sexual slavery, and other forms of exploitation are reported to exist in the country. Angola is a country of origin for trafficked children. (Watch List on Children and Armed Conflict, Angola: Important Note, ReliefWeb, [online] April 25, 2002 [cited June 4, 2004], 11; (http://www.reliefweb.int) Children have been trafficked internally and also to Namibia and South Africa for the purposes of sexual exploitation and domestic and commercial labor.
After the end of armed conflict in Angola in 2002, UNICEF and The Government of Angola started a programme for rehabilitating child soldiers which remained as a vital problem for years.
ARGENTINA
Ratified conventions 138 and 182.
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The Argentine Ministry of Labor, Employment, and Social Security estimated that 7.1 percent of children ages 5 to 14 were working in Argentina in 2000. Children work in agriculture harvesting tobacco, herba mate, flowers, tomatoes, strawberries, tea and garlic. In urban areas, children are engaged in trash collection, street sales, begging, shoe shining, domestic labor, in small and medium businesses, small scale garment production, food preparation, and brickwork.
Children in Argentina are involved in prostitution and sex tourism, in pornography and drug trafficking.
Children are trafficked to Argentina from Bolivia, Brazil, and Paraguay for sexual exploitation and labor. Argentine children are trafficked from rural to urban areas of the country and there is some trafficking of children abroad, mainly into prostitution in Brazil and Paraguay. (Trafficking in Persons Report, Washington, DC, June 14, 2004; available from http://www.state.gov/g/tip/rls/tiprpt/2004/ 33198pf.htm.)
The Government of Argentina is participating in a 4-year ILO-IPEC*** regional project to prevent and eliminate commercial sexual exploitation of children in the border area with Brazil and Paraguay.
AUSTRALIA
Not ratified ILO** conventions 138 and 182.
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There are no confirmed data on child labour. It is known that there is some child labour in agriculture and family enterprises. There are 3000 children involved in commercial sexual exploitation. These children work as street prostitutes, work in brothels and massage parleurs, work as strippers and involved in Pornography. There are cases where children under the age of 18 are found as soldiers especially in the case of East Timur in september 1999. Also some children are found working in hazardous conditions in garment manifacturing in sweatshops in Melbourne and Sydney.
AUSTRIA
Ratified ILO** conventions 138 and 182.
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There are no confirmed data on child labour.
It is known that it is a transit country for trafficking especially for young girls. More often young girls from the ex-Soviet Union counries are trafficked to West through Austria. These girls are forced to work as prostitutes and victims of debt bonded labour in the destination countries they are trafficked to.
BANGLADESH
Not ratified ILO** convention 138 but ratified ILO** convention 182.
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ILO** estimated that 26.9 percent of children ages 10 to 14 years in Bangladesh were working in 2002.
Children are working in bidi (hand-rolled cigarette) factories, construction, leather tanneries, fisheries, automobile repair, welding, bangle-making, rickshaw-pulling, matches manufacturing, brick-breaking, book binding, and the garment industry. In urban areas many children work as domestic servants, porters, and street vendors, and they become members of gang groups and take part in drug and arms trade. Also children are exposed to sexual exploitation on the streets.
Children are trafficked internally, externally, and through Bangladesh for purposes of domestic service, marriage, sale of organs, bonded labor, and sexual exploitation. The problem of child trafficking is compounded by the low rate of birth registration, since children without legal documents have no proof that they are underage, and the lack of enforcement at the borders. India and The Middle East are the primary destinations for trafficked children. Children are trafficked from rural areas of Bangladesh to its larger cities, and to countries in the Gulf region and The Middle East. Young boys are trafficked to United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Qatar to work as camel jockeys. (U.S. Department of State, “Trafficking in Persons Report- 2004: Bangladesh.” Burmese children are also trafficked through Bangladesh. See IOM, Bangladesh: Counter-Trafficking Efforts [online] (in IOM Press Briefing Notes, June 15, 2004 [cited July 15, 2004]); available from http://www.iom.int/en/archive/archive_press_brief_notes.shtml)
There are 8 ILO-IPEC*** programs to eliminate child labour in Bangladesh that has a funding totalling up to 12 million dolars. Also USDOL* programs for eliminating child labor in hazardous sectors such as bidis, construction, garment and matches sectors.
BELGIUM
Ratified ILO** conventions 138 and 182.
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ILO-IPEC*** participation status: *** There are no confirmed data on child labour.
Girls especially from Africa are trafficked to Netherlands for the purpose of sexual exploitation are then sold to traffickers in Belgium where they are forced to serve as sexual slaves.
On 22 November 1998 The Criminal Police Of Hannover reported that 3 children were trained by PKK a Kurdish terrorist Group (Considered Terrorist by the Turkish government, USA and other countries) as guerillas in Belgium.
BELIZE
Ratified ILO** conventions 138 and 182.
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The Central Statistical Office estimated that 6.3 percent of children ages 5 to 14 years were working in Belize in 2001. Acording to SIMPOC, %23 of children between the ages of 15 and17 are working. Children work in large proportion in agriculture, construction, tourism services, and manufacturing. %79 of working children are found in rural regions, working in family businesses after school, on weekends and during vacations.They also work in citrus, banana, and sugar fields. In urban areas, children shine shoes, sell newspapers. Trafficked children forced to work in banana industry.
Teenage girls,where many of them are trafficked from neighbour countries work as barmaids, house servants and prostitutes. Girls are trafficked from Central America to work in brothels in Belize. (See U.S. Department of State, Trafficking in Persons Report- 2004: Belize, U.S. Department of State, Washington, D.C., June 14, 2004; available from http://www.state.gov/g/tip/rls/tiprpt/ 2004/33198.htm. )
Belize is a transit, destination and origin country for child trafficking. Children that are trafficked are forced to work in brothels and are exploited for sexual purposes. Also there are reports pointing that girls are being sold to older men for sexual purposes. Child pornography is also a problem.
BENIN
Ratified ILO** conventions 138 and 182.
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ILO** estimated that 26.1 percent of children ages 10 to 14 were working in Benin in 2002. In Benin, children work on family farms, on construction sites, in markets, and as domestic servants. Because of poverty families supply their kids’ labor in return for a wage that will be given to them.
Benin is a source, destination and transit country for the trafficking of children. Children from Benin are trafficked into Cameroon, Republic of the Congo, Côte d’Ivoire, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Ghana, Nigeria, Togo, the Gulf States and Lebanon. Children from Burkina Faso, Niger and Togo are sold into servitude in Benin. Trafficked children work as, domestic servants, market vendors, agricultural workers, commercial sex workers, and in rock quarries. Nigerian police reported in 2003 that between 6,000 and 15,000 trafficked Beninese children worked in Nigeria, many on cocoa farms. Children are also trafficked within Benin for forced labor in construction, commercial enterprises, handicrafts, and street vending. (Integrated Regional Information Networks, “WEST AFRICA: Traffickers hold thousands of children, women in bondage”, IRINnews.org, [online], November 12, 2003 [cited February 12, 2004]; available from http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp? ReportID=37815.)
Videmegons are children who are working as domestic servants in rich houses with consent from their own family. Often they are subject to sexual exploitation, lack of education, forced labor and trafficking. (Approximately 90 to 95 percent of vidomegons were girls. See U.S. Department of State, Country Reports- 2003: Benin, Section 5.)
The Government of Benin is one of nine countries participating in a USDOL-funded* ILO-IPEC*** project to combat the trafficking of children for exploitative labor in West and Central Africa.
BHUTAN
Not ratified ILO** conventions 138 and 182.
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ILO** estimated that 49.4 percent of children ages 10 to 14 years in Bhutan were working in 2002. Children are working in agriculture, on family farms. Foreign child workers are found in road construction.
In August 2004, the National Assembly ratified the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation Convention (SAARC) on Preventing and Combating Trafficking in Women and Children for Prostitution.
BOLIVIA
Ratified ILO** conventions 138 and 182.
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UNICEF estimated that 26.4 percent of children ages 5 to 14 years in Bolivia were working in 2002. Children in rural areas work in subsistence farming, and the construction and livestock sectors. A large number of children are found working in sugar cane harvesting and production in Santa Cruz. In urban areas, children shine shoes, sell goods and assist transport operators. Children also work as small-scale miners and have been used to sell and traffic drugs. (ILO-IPEC, Phase I: Program to Prevent and Progressively Eliminate Child Labor in Small-scale Traditional Gold Mining in South America, project document, (ILO) LAR/00/05/050, Geneva, April 1, 2000, 2.)
Some children are known to work as indentured domestic laborers and prostitutes. Children are trafficked internally to urban or border areas for commercial sexual exploitation. Children and adolescents are trafficked internally within Bolivia and to Argentina, Chile, Brazil and Spain for the purpose of forced labor and commercial sexual exploitation. Women and adolescents from the indigenous areas of the high plains are at the greatest risk of being trafficked.
Children are forcibly recruited into the armed forces. %40 of the armed forces are under 18 and as young as 14. (See Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers, “Bolivia,” in Global Report 2001, 2001; available from http://www.child-soldiers.org/cs/childsoldiers.nsf )
ILO-IPEC*** regional project to eliminate child labor in small-scale mining in the Andean region and a USD 1.5 million project to improve the access to and quality of basic education for working children in the Potosí mines. (See CARE, Combating Child Labor in Bolivia Through Education, project document, 2002.)
BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINIA
Ratified ILO** conventions 138 and 182.
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UNICEF estimated that 17.7 percent of children ages 5 to 14 years in Bosnia and Herzegovina were working in 2000. Children help their families in farm work and Roma children beg on the streets in Sarajevo.
Bosnia is a country of origin, destination and transit for trafficking girls for prostitution. Girls ages between 14 to 18 years are trafficked from less economically developed Eastern Bosnia to more economically developed Western Bosnia and externally to Eastern and Western Europe for commercial sexual exploitation. The majority of trafficked women and girls in Bosnia come from Moldova, Romania and Ukraine and to a lesser extent Russia, Belarus and Serbia and Montenegro. (See U.S. Department of State, Trafficking in Persons Report- 2004: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Washington, D.C., June 14, 2004; available from http://www.state.gov/g/tip/rls/tiprpt/2004/33192.htm. )
BOTSWANA
Ratified ILO** conventions 138 and 182.
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ILO** estimated that 13.5 percent of children ages 10 to 14 years in Botswana were working in 2002. Children work as cattle tenders, domestic servants and babysitters. There are a lot of orphans who lost their parents because of HIV. These children are vulnerable and carry a high risk in becoming a beggar or a prostitute. Botswana’s 2001 Population and Housing Census counted 111,828 children who had lost one or both parents. Commercial sexual exploitation of children also reportedly occurs on the border road between South Africa and Botswana and in tourist areas. (See ECPAT International, Botswana, [online] 2004 [cited March 24, 2004]; available from http://www.ecpat.net/eng/Ecpat_inter/projects/monitoring/ online_database/.)
The Government of Botswana is working with ILO-IPEC*** to implement a USDOL-funded* regional child labor project in Southern Africa, which includes Botswana. (www.dol.gov/ilab/media/reports/iclp/main.htm)
BRAZIL
Ratified ILO** conventions 138 and 182.
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The Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics estimated that approximately 6.8 percent of children ages 5 to 14 years were working in 2001. Children work in rural areas in mining, fishing, producing charcoal, and harvesting sugar cane, cotton, sisal, citrus, and other crops. In urban areas, children are shining shoes, street peddling, begging, and working in restaurants, construction, and transportation. Many children and adolescents are employed as domestic servants (ILO** has estimated that approximately 500,000 minors are employed as domestic servants in Brazil) and others work as trash pickers, drug traffickers and prostitutes.
ILO-IPEC*** program on “Prevention and Elimination of Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children and Adolescents on the Border of Paraguay/Brazil”.
BULGARIA
Ratified ILO** conventions 138 and 182.
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Official statistics on the number of working children under the age of 15 years in Bulgaria are unavailable. Children work in agriculture, forestry, transportation, communications, construction and industry.
Children are involved in the distribution of drugs and in prostitution, sometimes working with organized crime rings. Many victims of child prostitution are ethnic Roma children. Bulgaria is a transit country and, to a lesser extent, a country of origin and destination for trafficking in girls for sexual exploitation. Victims are primarily trafficked from Ukraine, Romania, Moldova, Russia, and Central Asia through Bulgaria into Western, Southern, and Eastern Europe.
A USAID-funded pilot project using education to combat child prostitution and trafficking is being implemented in Bulgaria along the Romanian border.
BURKINA FASO
Ratified ILO** conventions 138 and 182.
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ILO-IPEC*** participation status: *** ILO** estimated that 40.4 percent of children ages 10 to 14 were working in Burkina Faso in 2001. Children are working in agriculture, gold washing and mining. Significant numbers of girls are found in vending and domestic service.
Burkina Faso is a source, transit, and destination country for trafficked children. Children are trafficked into Burkina Faso’s two largest cities, Bobo-Dioulasso and Ouagadougou, to work as domestic servants, street vendors, in agriculture, and in prostitution. Children from Burkina Faso are trafficked into Côte d’Ivoire to work on cocoa plantations and also to Benin, Ghana, Mali, and Nigeria. Boys are trafficked within and into Burkina Faso for forced agricultural labor, domestic service, metal working and mining.
Burkina Faso is one of nine countries participating in the USDOL-funded* ILO-IPEC*** project to combat the trafficking of children for exploitative labor in West and Central Africa. The Government of Burkina Faso continues to participate in USD 3 million USDOL-funded* education initiative in Burkina Faso to promote education for victims of child trafficking and children at risk of being trafficked.
BURUNDI
Ratified ILO** conventions 138 and 182.
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UNICEF estimated that 32.2 percent of children ages 5 to 14 years in Burundi were working in 2003. Children work in domestic services, subsistence agriculture, the informal urban sector, mining and brick-making industries. Government and rebel armed forces used children as soldiers. Also some girls are abducted and used as wives and forced to serve and sexually exploited. Child soldiers from Burundi have also fought in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. (Amnesty International, Burundi: Child soldiers- the Challenge of Demobilisation, March 2004; available from http://web.amnesty.org/library/print/ENGAFR160112004.) Child prostitution is a problem. There are reports that child trafficking occurs both within Burundi and across borders.
ILO-IPEC*** project, funded by USDOL, to demobilize and rehabilitate children involved in armed conflict. This project aims to reintegrate 1,440 child soldiers in Burundi, and prevent the recruitment of an additional 1,000 children at risk.
CAMBODIA
Ratified ILO** conventions 138 and 182.
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The Cambodian National Institute of Statistics estimated that 44.8 percent of children ages 5 to 14 years in Cambodia were working in 2001. The majority of working children in Cambodia are engaged in the agriculture sector. Children also work in hazardous conditions on commercial rubber plantations, in salt production, in fish processing and as garbage pickers. (ILO-IPEC, Combating Child Labor in Hazardous Work in Salt Production, Rubber Plantations, and Fish/Shrimp Processing Centers in Cambodia, project document, CMB/01/P51/USA, Geneva, 2001.) Street children engage in scavenging, begging, shoe polishing. Children especially girls, also work as domestic servants.
Cambodia is reported to be a country of origin, transit, and destination for trafficking in children for the purposes of commercial sexual exploitation and various forms of work, including forced labor and begging. Cambodian children are trafficked to Thailand and Malaysia for the purpose of commercial sexual exploitation or bonded labor. The commercial sexual exploitation of children is a serious problem in Cambodia. Children are also used in pornography. (U.S. Department of State, Country Reports- 2003: Cambodia, Section 5.)
Cambodia is included in a regional ILO-IPEC*** anti-trafficking project with funding from the Department for International Development (DFID)-UK.
CAMEROON
Ratified ILO** conventions 138 and 182.
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UNICEF estimated that 58.1 percent of children ages 5 to 14 were working in Cameroon in 2000. Children in Cameroon work in the agricultural sector; work as street vendors and car washers, work as domestic servants, as prostitution. Certain forms of child labor are reported to be culturally accepted traditions in the North and Southwest. Children are also work in the cocoa industry and engage in certain hazardous tasks such as application of pesticides and use of machetes.
Girls are trafficked internally from the Grand North and Northwest provinces to urban areas. Children are also trafficked to work in the production of cocoa. Cameroon is a destination country for children trafficked from Nigeria and Benin and a transit country for the movement of children between Nigeria and Gabon. There have been credible reports of child slavery in Cameroon, particularly in the Rey Bouba Division of North Province. In some cases, parents offered their young girls to the Lamido (chief) of the Rey Bouba Division as gifts. The Ministry of Social Affairs also reports that children of some large rural families are “loaned” to work as domestic servants, vendors, prostitutes or baby sitters in urban areas in exchange for monetary compensation.
The Government of Cameroon is collaborating with ILO-IPEC*** on two USDOL-funded* West and Central African regional projects to combat child trafficking and child labor in the production of cocoa.
CANADA
Not ratified ILO** convention 138 but ratified ILO** convention 182.
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There no confirmed data on child labour.
Around 12 young girls and women from Asia are trafficked to Canada “each week” on visitor’s permit and sold into prostitution. They are sold to brothels in Markham, Scarborough and Toronto and forced into 40,000 US dollars debt-bondage.
Child prostitution is a growing problem in Canada. And according to social workers many among the 10,000 street children fall in the hands of pimps and start working as hookers on the streets.
Some Honduran children are trafficked to Canada by the drug dealing rings and they turn out work as indentured drug dealers on the streets.
CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC
Ratified ILO** conventions 138 and 182.
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UNICEF estimated that 63.5 percent of children ages 5 to 14 years in the Central African Republic were working in 2000. In rural areas children work in agricultural sector. Children work alongside in diamond fields. Indigenous children, including pygmy children, are forced to work. Children are also involved in prostitution.
Reports indicate that children fought for both pro-government and rebel forces during the coup that occurred in March 2003. Many street children were enrolled in armed conflict. Provided with only a few days of training, many of these children were killed in battle. (See UN Commission on Civil and Political Rights, List of issues prepared in the absence of the second periodic report of the State party, due on 9 April 1989, Geneva, September 3, 2003.)
CHAD
Ratified ILO** conventions 138 and 182.
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UNICEF estimated that 65.5 percent of children ages 5 to 14 years were working in 2000. Children work in agriculture and herding and as street vendors. Some families arrange marriages for daughters as young as 12 or 13 years. These very young married girls are proun to become victims of sexual abuse and forced labor. There are families selling their children into forced labor in farming and herding. Mahadjir children, who attend Islamic schools, were forced by their teachers to beg for food and money.
In 2003, UNICEF estimated that there were approximately 600 child soldiers serving in government security forces and armed groups in the country.
CHILE
Ratified ILO** conventions 138 and 182.
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The National Statistics Institute of Chile estimated that 3.3 percent of children ages 5 to 14 years were working in the country in 2003. Children work in agriculture in rural areas, and they also work in mines. They work in construction sites and sell goods on the streets. Prostitution in Chile is aserious problem. UNICEF reported that in 1999 there were approximately 10,000 child prostitutes between the ages of 6 and 18. In 2003, the Government of Chile estimated that there were approximately 3,700 children involved in some form of commercial sexual exploitation. Children are also trafficked internally for the purpose of commercial sexual exploitation. ( Government of Chile, Information Sought, submitted in response to U.S. Department of Labor Federal Register Notice (July 14, 2004) “Request for Information on Efforts by Certain Countries to Eliminate the Worst Forms of Child Labor”, Santiago, October 2004, 7.) There is a Canadian-funded ILO-IPEC*** project to combat the commercial sexual exploitation of children in Chile. In September, USDOL* funded a USD 5.5 million ILO-IPEC*** regional project to continue to combat the commercial sexual exploitation of children in Chile.
COLOMBIA
Ratified ILO** conventions 138 and 182.
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The Colombian National Administrative Department of Statistics estimated that 10.4 percent of children ages 5 to 14 were working in Colombia in 2001. The majority of children work in agriculture which is uncompensated family work, commerce, industry, and services. Also children work in illegal gold, clay, coal, emerald, and limestone mines. (ILO-IPEC, Prevention and Elimination of Child Labor in Small-Scale Mining-Colombia, project document, COL/01/P50/USA, Geneva, September 25, 2001, 5-7.) In urban areas, children work as domestic servants and also and also work as vendors and wait tables.
Children also work in coca picking and involve in drug trade. (In 2000, an estimated 200,000 children were involved in such activities. See Colombian Ombudsman’s Office, Informe sobre los derechos humanos de la niñez en Colombia durante el año 2001, 2001, 26.)
Sexual exploitation of children is a serious problem in Colombia. Children work in the streets or in private establishments such as bars, brothels, or massage parlors, and their ages range between 13-17. Colombia is a source and transit country for girls trafficked for sexual exploitation. (U.S. Department of State, Country Reports- 2003: Colombia, Section 6f.)
Children are recruited, sometimes forcibly, by guerrilla and paramilitary groups in Colombia to serve as combatants, and are used by government armed forces as informants. They are also used as messengers, spies, and sexual partners, and to carry out such tasks as kidnapping and guarding of hostages and transporting and placing bombs. (Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers, “Colombia,” in Global Report 2001, London, 2001.) Young people, including peasant girls, are also used as forced labor in the illegal gasoline trade, and some are forced to carry out torture and executions. (Watchlist on Children and Armed Conflict, Colombia’s War on Children, 21, 27-29.)
The Government of Colombia participates in a 3-year inter-regional ILO-IPEC*** project funded by USDOL* that aims to prevent and reintegrate children involved in armed conflict.
DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO
Ratified ILO** conventions 138 and 182.
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UNICEF estimated that 23.5 percent of children ages 5 to 14 years in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) were working in 2001. Some children work as hunters or fishers to support their families instead of attending school. Children work in mining and stone crushing. Children are involved in the crushing of coltan, which may pose special health hazards.( Watchlist on Children and Armed Conflict, The Impact of Armed Conflict on Children in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), New York, June 2003, 21.)
Children are severly affected by the armed conflict in the country. Many children lost their parents and became orphans left to live on the streets are vulnerable and majority of them are either beggars or involved in illegal and dangereous activities such as prostitution.
The battle in the DRC is said to be the world’s deadliest conflict since the Second World War. Within a 5-year period, 3.3 million people have been killed. The provision of basic necessities, including food, water, and shelter, has been cut off to children and families in war-affected areas. (UNICEF, At a Glance: Congo, Democratic Republic of the, [online] 2004 [cited May 25, 2004]; available from http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/drcongo.html)
Girls, in particular, have been abducted by armed groups and forced into prostitution and domestic labor. Children also served as soldiers in a number of armed groups, including the Congolese Armed Forces, the Mai-Mai, various branches of the Congolese Rally for Democracy (RCD), the Movement for the Liberation of the Congo (MLC), and the Union of Congolese Patriots (UPC). (Human Rights Watch, Democratic Republic of Congo: Briefing to the 60th Session of the UN Commission on Human Rights, [online] 2004 [cited February 5, 2004]; available from http://hrw.org/english/docs/2004/01/29/congo7128.htm.)
The World Bank, released funds in the amount of USD 100 million for Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration of child soldiers (DDR) programs in the DRC. These funds are complemented by an additional USD 100 million from the World Bank. There is an ILO-IPEC*** project funded by USDOL* to demobilize and rehabilitate children involved in armed conflict.
REPUBLIC OF CONGO
Ratified ILO** conventions 138 and 182.
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ILO** estimated that 25.2 percent of children ages 10 to 14 years in the Republic of Congo were working in 2002. Children work with their families on farms or in informal business activities. There are a lot of street children, from the Democratic Republic of Congo, engage in street vending, begging, and petty theft, and there were isolated cases of children involved in prostitution.
Children are reported to be involved and recruited in the armed forces when there was armed conflict. (U.S. Department of State, Country Reports- 2003: Congo, Section 5.)
There is a 3-year inter-regional ILO-IPEC*** project funded by USDOL* in 2003 to reintegrate children involved and prevent children from involvement in armed conflicts.
COSTA RICA
Ratified ILO** conventions 138 and 182.
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The Costa Rican National Institute of Statistics and Censuses estimated that 5.9 percent of children ages 5 to 14 years were working in Costa Rica in 2002. In rural areas, children work in agriculture. Costa Rican children harvest coffee beans. (Casa Alianza, Kids that pick coffee: CRC’s Article 28, The Right to an Education, [online] [cited March 25, 2004]; available from http://www.casa-alianza.org/EN/human-rights/ labor-exploit/articles/coffee.phtml.)
Nicaraguan immigrants, including children, are also found working on Costa Rican farms. Children work as domestic servants, and others involved in street vending, construction, fixing cars, family businesses, and the small-scale production of handicrafts.
The commercial sexual exploitation of children occurs mainly because of sex tourism. Costa Rica is a transit and destination point for children trafficked for purposes of commercial sexual exploitation, including prostitution. Most trafficking victims originate from Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, Panama, as well as from Russia, the Philippines, Romania, Eastern Europe, and Ecuador. Although most foreign victims remain in Costa Rica, traffickers also attempt to transport them onward to the U.S. and Canada. (Maria Cecilia Claramunt, Sexual Exploitation in Costa Rica: Analysis of the critical path to prostitution for boys, girls, and adolescents, UNICEF, 1999, 29.)
The Government of Costa Rica is participating in several ILO-IPEC*** projects funded by USDOL. These projects include a project to combat child labor in the coffee sector a regional project to combat child labor in commercial agriculture and a regional project aimed at combating commercial sexual exploitation.
COTE D’IVORIE
Ratified ILO** conventions 138 and 182.
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UNICEF estimated that 40.3 percent of children ages 5 to 14 years were working in Côte d’Ivoire in 2000. Children are working in agriculture especially in “cocoa” sector, family-operated artisanal gold and diamond mines, fishing, and houses. Some children working as domestics are subject to mistreatment, including sexual abuse. Children also shine shoes, watch and wash cars, sell food in street restaurants, and work as vendors or in sweatshop conditions in small workshops.There are also large numbers of street children in the country, particularly in Abidjan and some girls work as prostitutes. Children work in prostitution rings run by criminal networks. Many of the girl prostitutes in Abidjan are Nigerian. (ECPAT International, Ivory Coast, in ECPAT International, [database online] n.d. [cited May 17, 2004]; www.ecpat.net/eng/Ecpat_inter/projects/monitoring/ online_database/countries.asp)
National armed forces and rebel groups recruit or use children in situations of armed conflict, sometimes on a forced basis. (United Nations Economic and Social Council, Rights of the Child: Annual Report of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict, Olara Otunnu, E/CN.4/2004/70, January 28, 2004, 11. See also U.S. Department of State, Country Reports- 2003: Côte d’Ivoire, Section 5.)
Children in cocoa sector are involved in hazardous tasks that include spraying pesticides without protection, using machetes to clear undergrowth and carrying heavy loads.( International Institute of Tropical Agriculture, Child Labor in the Cocoa Sector of West Africa: A synthesis of findings in Cameroon, Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, and Nigeria, August 2002, 16.)
Côte d’Ivoire is a source and destination country for trafficked children. Children are trafficked into the country from Benin, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Mali, Mauritania and Togo to work as domestic servants, farm laborers, and indentured servants, and for sexual exploitation.
The Government of Côte d’Ivoire is one of nine countries participating in a USDOL* funded ILO-IPEC*** project to combat the trafficking of children for exploitative labor in West and Central Africa. Also the government is running a 3 yera ILO-IPEC*** program funded by USDOL* to combat child labour in cocoa sector.
CROATIA
Ratified ILO** conventions 138 and 182.
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Statistics on the number of working children under age 15 in Croatia are unavailable. Croatia is a transit country for women and girls trafficked for commercial sexual expoloitation. These women and girls are forced to work as prostitutes in the destination countries. (UNICEF, UNOHCHR, OCSE/ODIHR, and Barbara Limanowska, Trafficking in Human Beings in Southeastern Europe:2003 Update on Situation and Responses to Trafficking in Human Beings in Croatia, November 2003, 124 and 31; http://www.osce.org/documents/odihr/2003/12/1645_en.pdf.)
CZECH REPUBLIC
Not ratified ILO** convention 138 but ratified ILO** convention 182.
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There are no confirmed data on child labour.
Prostitution is an ever increasing problem all over the country. Girls are also becoming matterials of pornographic acts. There is a small town called Dubi which is right next to the E55 highway where there are more than 200 brothels. This only shows how serious the probem is just with in the country.
DENMARK
Ratified ILO** conventions 138 and 182.
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There are no confirmed data on child labour.
DJIBOUTI
Ratified ILO** conventions 138 and 182.
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Statistics on the number of working children under the age of 15 in Djibouti are unavailable. In rural areas, children work on family farms. In urban areas, children often work in the informal sector in small-scale family businesses, trade, catering, crafts, or as domestic servants. Children displaced from Ethiopia and Somalia are working as shoe polishers, car washers, khat sellers (“Khat” is a leaf that is chewed and its effect is as a stimulant.), street peddlers, money changers, beggars, and in commercial sexual exploitation.
Commercial sexual exploitation of refugee street children in the capital city is reported. A report by the Ministry of Youth and UNICEF found numerous girls between the ages of 8 and 17 years, many from Ethiopia, leaving work as domestic servants to become involved in commercial sex exploitation. (ECPAT International, Djibouti, in ECPAT International, [database online] [cited May 14, 2004]; available from http://www.ecpat.net/eng/Ecpat_inter/projects /monitoring/online_database/.)
DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
Ratified ILO** conventions 138 and 182.
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The Dominican State Department of Labor estimated that 14.5 percent of children ages 5 to 14 years were working in the Dominican Republic in 2000. Children work in agriculture where both Haitian and Dominican children participate in the planting and cutting of “sugarcane”. Children also work in coffee and tomato plantations.
Children also work as street vendors and shoe shiners. Children from poor families are sometimes adopted into the homes of other families, often serving under a kind of indentured servitude.
The commercial sexual exploitation of children is common in tourist locations such as Boca Chica, Puerto Plata and Sosua.Majority of the girls are working in brothels, discos, restaurants, and hotels. There are reports that women and children are trafficked to from and within the Dominican Republic, particularly for the purpose of commercial sexual exploitation. Haitian children are reportedly trafficked to the Dominican Republic to work as prostitutes, shoe shiners, street vendors, in agriculture, and to beg in the streets.There are also reports that young Dominican girls are trafficked to Haiti to work as prostitutes. (ILO-IPEC, Explotación sexual comercial de personas menores de edad en República Dominicana, September 2002, 13.)
The government is involved in two ILO-IPEC*** regional projects to combat child labor in the coffee and tomato sectors.
ECUADOR
Ratified ILO** conventions 138 and 182.
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ILO** estimated that 3.9 percent of children ages 10 to 14 years in Ecuador were working in 2002. Majority of children are working in sierra, or highlands, followed by the Amazon and urban coastal areas. Children as young as 8 years of age are working on banana plantations under unsafe working conditions. Children also work under hazardous conditions in cut-flower sector. In urban areas, children work in commerce and services as messengers and domestics.
ILO-IPEC*** estimated that there were 5,200 girls and adolescents in situations of sexual exploitation in 2002. This investigation was conducted through field surveys of 415 girls and adolescents in Guayaquil, Quito, and Machala, 3 of the 4 largest cities in Ecuador.(Mariana Sandoval Laverde, Magnitude, Characteristics and Environment of Sexual Exploitation of Girls and Adolescents in Ecuador, ILO-IPEC, Quito, October, 2002, Executive Summary,3.) Ecuador is a country of origin, transit and destination for the trafficking of persons, but most child victims are trafficked internally for prostitution.
A USDOL-funded* 38-month Timebound Program, implemented by ILO-IPEC, complements the government’s plan to eliminate the worst forms of child labor in the country. Another USDOL-funded* ILO-IPEC*** regional program in Ecuador, Bolivia and Peru aims to prevent and progressively eliminate child labor in small-scale traditional gold mining.
EGYPT
Ratified ILO** conventions 138 and 182.
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ILO** estimated that 8.3 percent of children ages 10 to 14 years were working in Egypt in 2002. Children mainly work in agricultural sectors in rural areas such as cotton farms. Children in urban areas work in leather tanneries, pottery kilns, glassworks, blacksmith, metal and copper workshops, battery and carpentry shops, auto repair workshops, and textile and plastics factories.
Poor families let their children work as servants in rich houses. Child domestic workers are excluded from the protections of the labor code and are highly susceptible to physical and sexual abuse, harsh working conditions, and exploitation. (Karam Saber, A Situational Analysis of Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children in Egypt, Land Centre for Human Rights (LCHR), March 2003, 10-11, www.ecpat.net/eng/ecpat_inter/projects/monitoring/rabat/egypt.pdf.) Street children work shining shoes, collecting rubbish, begging, cleaning and directing cars into parking spaces, and selling food and trinkets. Street children are vulnerable to becoming involved in illicit activities, including stealing, smuggling, pornography, and prostitution.
Commercial sexual exploitation occurs in touristic cities like Cairo and Alexandria. Egypt is a country of transit for child trafficking, particularly for underage girls from Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union who are trafficked into Israel and for forced labor and sexual exploitation. It is a common practice for underage girls from poor and rural areas to be forced to marry men from the Gulf States for sexual servitude. (UNICEF, Profiting from Abuse: An investigation into the sexual exploitation of our children, New York, November 2001, 11; available from http://www.unicef.org/publications/pub_profiting_en.pdf.)
EL SALVADOR
Ratified ILO** conventions 138 and 182.
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ILO-IPEC*** estimated that 7.1 percent of children ages 5 to 14 years were working in El Salvador in 2001. Children often work in commercial agriculture, particularly during coffee and sugar harvests. Children also work in fishing, fireworks manufacturing, shellfish harvesting, and garbage scavenging. Children work as street vendors.
The commercial sexual exploitation and trafficking of children, especially girls, is a problem in El Salvador. El Salvador is a source, transit, and destination country for children trafficked for commercial sexual exploitation. Salvadoran girls are trafficked to Mexico, the United States, and other Central American countries. Children from Nicaragua, Honduras, and South America are trafficked to bars in major Salvadoran cities, where they are then forced to engage in prostitution.
The Government of El Salvador continues to participate in the national Timebound Program, funded by USDOL, to eliminate the worst forms of child labor. The Timebound Program focuses on eliminating exploitive child labor in fireworks production, fishing, sugar cane harvesting, commercial sexual exploitation, and garbage dumps scavenging. ILO-IPEC*** projects funded by USDOL* seek to withdraw child workers from coffee harvesting and the cottage production of fireworks.
ERITREA
Ratified ILO** convention 138 but not ratified ILO** convention 182.
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ILO** estimated that 37.9 percent of children ages 10 to 14 years in Eritrea were working in 2002. Children in urban areas work on the streets as vendors selling food, newspapers, cigarettes and chewing gum. Children living in rural areas work in the agricultural sector, on family farms. They carry water and firewood, and herd livestock.
ECPAT International reported that commercial sexual exploitation of children in Eritrea is exacerbated by the presence of UN peacekeeping troops. Children as young as 12 years of age are reportedly to be involved in prostitution. Most work on the streets, in bars, or in hotels in Asmara and Massawa. (ECPAT International, Eritrea, ECPAT International, [database online] [cited August 2, 2004 2003])
ETHIOPIA
Ratified ILO** conventions 138 and 182.
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The Ethiopian Central Statistics Authority estimated that 49.0 percent of children ages 5 to 14 in Ethiopia were working in 2001. The majority of children are working in agriculture. Children work on coffee, tea, sugarcane, and cotton plantations, and horticultural farms. In rural areas, children are washing, cooking, fetching water, and herding animals.. The cotton and sugarcane plantations are located in the kolla zone, where children tend to be at a higher risk for malaria, yellow fever and snakebites. Education opportunities are also limited on these plantations. (ILO/EAMAT, A Study on Child Labour in Rural Ethiopia: working paper no. 1, ILO/Eastern Africa Multidisciplinary Advisory Team, Addis Ababa, 1999, 4-9.)
In urban areas, children work as street peddling, messenger service, shoe-shining, portering, assisting taxi drivers, construction, mining, manufacturing and refuse disposal. Many child domestics in Addis Ababa are orphans.
Girls as young as 11 years old have been reportedly recruited to work in brothels. Girls also work as hotel workers, barmaids, and prostitutes in resort towns and rural truck stops. Ethiopia is a source country for children trafficked for the purpose of sexual exploitation and forced domestic and commercial labor. (ECPAT International, Ethiopia.)
FIJI
Ratified ILO** conventions 138 and 182.
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Statistics on the number of working children under the age of 15 in Fiji are unavailable. Children work in agriculture generally in the tobacco sector. Children shine shoes, collect bottles, run errands for restaurants, repair cars, and work as domestics in homes. Children are involved in prostitution and pornography. Both locals and foreigners are trying to make profits out of commercial sexual exploitation. (U.S. Department of State, Country Reports- 2003: Fiji, UN Commission on Human Rights, Report of the Special Rapporteur on the Sale of Children, 84.)
FINLAND
Ratified ILO** conventions 138 and 182.
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There are no confirmed data on child labour.
Child prostitution and child pornography is a concern in the country though there are no official statistics. (www.globalmarch.org)
FRANCE
Ratified ILO** conventions 138 and 182.
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There are no confirmed data on child labour.
Child prostitution and pornography is a general concern. And there are known cases where young girls from African countries found working as prostitutes. Also commercial sexual work under 18 can be found on the streets though no data is confirmed.
PKK, a Kurdish Terrorist Group (Considered Terrorist by the Turkish Government, USA and other countries) is known to have recruited children in France.
GABON
Ratified convention 182 but not 138.
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ILO** estimated that 12.4 percent of children ages 10 to 14 years were working in Gabon in 2002. Children are trafficked from Benin, Nigeria, and Togo. Trafficked girls, are working as domestic servants. Nigerian children are working as mechanics. Children who are purchased in Benin, Togo and Mali for as little as USD 14 may be sold to commercial farms in Gabon and Côte d’Ivoire for up to USD 340.(United Nations Foundation, [online] April 13, 2001, http://www.unfoundation.org/unwire/util/ display_stories.asp?objid=14230.)
There is a tradition of “locating” poor children in rich houses. They are supposed to perform some services in exchange for education. Though generally children are not educated and they are getting sexually abused.
The government is participating in a USDOL-funded* ILO-IPEC*** project to combat the trafficking of children for exploitative labor in West and Central Africa.
GEORGIA
Ratified ILO** conventions 138 and 182.
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UNICEF estimated that 28.8 percent of children ages 5 to 14 years in Georgia were working in 1999. Children work in family businesses, and in agriculture in rural areas. Children as young as 9 years old are working in markets, and carrying or loading wares. Children work in cafes, bistros, gas stations, and for street photographers.
Girls are involved in prostitution and pornography. They are getting sexually exploited by various ways. Children are also involved in drug trade. Trafficking of children occurs, and thousands of children living in the streets and in orphanages are vulnerable to trafficking. (U.S. Department of State, Trafficking in Persons Report- 2004: Georgia, Washington, D.C., June 14, 2004; from http://www.state.gov/g/tip/rls/tiprpt/2004/33192.htm.)
The GAMBIA
Ratified ILO** conventions 138 and 182.
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UNICEF estimated that 26.9 percent of children ages 5 to 14 years in the Gambia were working in 2000. Children are mainly working with their families in the farms. Children work in carpentry, sewing, masonry, plumbing, tailoring, and mechanics. In urban areas, children are working as street vendors or taxi and bus assistants. There are children living in streets and begging.
Commercial sexual exploitation of children is a problem and this mainly occurs in the sex tourism industry. Girls are tricked in to prostitution by adults offering a rich and “western style life”. Child trafficking also occurs. Children are trafficked for the purposes of commercial sexual exploitation and forced domestic and commercial labor. Most children are seized from rural areas and moved to urban centers. Many, ultimately, are trafficked to Europe or South America where they are exploited by the pornography industry.
“Poverty makes children and their families vulnerable to wealthier adults, or “sugar daddies”, who are in a position to use money and gifts to secure sexual access to children. The lure of money and replicating the “Western Lifestyle” is an extremely powerful inducement for young girls in their desperation to escape the abject poverty that defines their existence. These vulnerable girls are often lead to a life of prostitution and or being trafficked to Western Europe.” (UNICEF, Child Sex Tourism and Exploitation Increasing in The Gambia, Press Release, UNICEF, May 5 2004; available from http://www.unicef.org/media/media_20825.html. The Report ,”Study on The Sexual Abuse and Exploitation of Children in Gambia” was a joint project conducted by the Government of the Gambia and UNICEF. )
GERMANY
Ratified ILO** conventions 138 and 182.
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There are no confirmed data on child labour.
Germany is a transit and destination country for young girls and women that are trafficked. Especially young girls from Eastern European Countries are sold to brothels in Germany and work as prostitutes. It is considered that around 2,000- 20,000 women and young girls are trafficked and forced into prostitution each year.
GHANA
Ratified ILO** conventions 138 and 182.
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The Ghana Statistical Service estimated that approximately 27.2 percent of children ages 5 to 14 years in Ghana were working in 2001. Mainly children are working in family farms in rural areas, children can be found working in picking, fishing, herding and as contract farm labor. Children also work as domestics, porters, hawkers, miners and quarry workers, and fare-collectors.
In urban areas, children work as truck pushers, porters, and sales workers. Some children cast and draw nets in deep water fishing in Laka Volta.
Ghana is a source, transit, and destination country for trafficked children. Children are trafficked to neighboring countries for forced labor and young girls are trafficked to the Middle East as domestic workers and to both the Middle East and Europe for purposes of commercial sexual exploitation. (http://www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=39717). Internally, boys are trafficked from the Northern region to fishing communities in the Volta region or small mines. Girls are trafficked to Accra and Kumasi to work as domestics, assistants to traders and kayayeis, porters who trade goods carried on head loads.
GUATEMALA
Ratified ILO** conventions 138 and 182.
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The Guatemalan National Institute of Statistics estimated that 16.3 percent of children ages 6 to 14 years in Guatemala were working in 2000. Of this population, Children help harvest commercial crops such as coffee and broccoli. (ILO-IPEC, Prevention and Progressive Elimination of Child Labor in the Coffee Industry in Guatemala, technical progress report, GUA/99/05/060, Geneva, March 3, 2004.) Children also work in family businesses, in the fireworks and stone quarries sectors, and as domestic servants and garbage pickers.
Street children are vulnerable to sexual exploitation in Guatemala. In general, child prostitution is on the rise. Guatemala is considered a source, transit and destination country for trafficked children. Children prostitution is a serious problem in Guatemala. Child prostitution is especially common in the capital and other major cities as well as towns along the borders with El Salvador and Mexico. (Casa Alianza, Casa Alianza Investigation Finds Hundreds of Girls Trafficked in Guatemala, [online] March 31, 2004 [cited April 2, 2004]; available from http://www.casaalianza.org/EN/noticias/lmn/noticia863.)
Guatemala is currently participating in two USDOL-funded* ILO-IPEC*** regional projects aimed at combating commercial sexual exploitation of children and child labor in commercial agriculture. The government is also collaborating with ILO-IPEC*** on USDOL-funded* projects aimed at combating child labor in the fireworks, coffee, broccoli, and stone quarrying sectors.
GUINEA
Ratified ILO** conventions 138 and 182.
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ILO** estimated that 29.9 percent of children ages 10 to 14 years in Guinea were working in 2002. Children work in subsistence farming, petty commerce, fishing, and small-scale mining. Children also work in gold and diamond mines, granite and sand quarries, and as apprentices to mechanics, electricians, and plumbers. Children work in the commercial sex industry. Guinea is a source, transit and destination country for trafficking in persons, including children, for sexual exploitation and labor.
In 2003, UNICEF estimated that 2,000 Guinean “child soldiers”, one-fifth of them girls, would require demobilization upon their return from Liberia’s recent armed conflict.
Government is involved in an ILO-IPEC*** program funded by USDOL* to withdraw children from hazardous work in the cocoa sector.
GUYANA
Ratified ILO** conventions 138 and 182.
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UNICEF estimated that 27 percent of children ages 5 to 14 in Guyana were working in 2002. Children work as porters, domestic servants, waitresses, in sawmills and markets and are also engaged in prostitution, agricultural work, mining, and the illicit drug trade. Girls work as domestic servants and waitresses in restaurants.
The Guyana Human Rights Association reported that there were cases where girls as young as 11 are recruited to work in bars and restaurants as “prostitutes”. Children are also engaged in “prostitution” in ports, gold mining areas, and the capital city of Georgetown. Young women and children are known to be trafficked for the purpose of sexual exploitation mostly within the country. Foreign victims are also trafficked to Guyana from Brazil and Venezuela, and may be transited through Guyana to Suriname. (U.S. Department of State, Trafficking in Persons Report- 2004: Guyana, Washington, D.C., June 14, 2004; available from http://www.state.gov/g/tip/rls/tiprpt/2004/33198.htm#guyana.)
HAITI
Not ratified ILO** conventions 138 and 182.
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ILO** estimated that 21.8 percent of children ages 10 to 14 years in Haiti were working in 2002. Children work on family farms and in the informal sector.
“Restaveks”, who are child domestic workers, are employed in rich families where they are getting no financial compensation. Also the majority of restaveks are getting no education and are proun to sexual abuse.
Armed gangs in 10 of Haiti’s 31 zones have recruited children for participation in the conflict.
An estimated 2,500 to 3,000 Haitian children are trafficked annually to the Dominican Republic to work as beggars or prostitutes.
THE NETHERLANDS
Ratified ILO** conventions 138 and 182.
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There are no confirmed data on child labour.
Each year more tha 3,000 women are trafficked into the country for commercial sexual exploitation. It is reported that only one single Polish pimp trafficked more than 200 girls where some are younger than 16, in between years 1993-1996. Even that is an important data which justifies how serious the problem is.
Also there are girls which are trafficked from Africa as well for the same purposes as explained above. It is estimated that around 500-2000 girls are entering the commercial sexual sector.
HONDURAS
Ratified ILO** conventions 138 and 182.
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The Honduran National Institute of Statistics estimated that 9.2 percent of children in Honduras ages 5 to 14 years were working in 2002. Children are employed in agriculture, forestry, hunting, fishing, manufacturing, mining, electricity, gas, construction, transportation and service industries. Children are also found working in the maquila sector. (The short term for maquiladora, these are plantations in Latin American countries owned by the American companies where there are tax advantages and duty-free trade opportunities)
The government of Honduras listed the worst forms of child labour as follows: commercial sexual exploitation (particularly in major cities and the tourist sector along the North Coast); fireworks manufacturing (in Copán); marine diving (on lobster boats in the Mosquitia coast); work in limestone quarries and garbage dumps (in the two large cities of Tegucigalpa and San Pedro Sula); mining and dirt extraction (South and East regions); the sale and handling of pesticides (Copán, La Ceiba, and Choluteca); construction; and agricultural work (in the coffee and melon and sugarcane industries).
There is evidence of child prostitution in Honduras. Honduran girls are trafficked internally and to the United States, Mexico, Guatemala, Canada and other Central American countries for the purpose of prostitution. (http://www.casaalianza.org/EN/human-rights/sexual-exploit/docs/ 16122003.phtml.)
Government is currently participating in a number of ILO-IPEC*** projects. These include a USDOL-funded* project to prevent and remove children from full-time work in commercial coffee farms in Santa Barbara, as well as two USDOL-funded* regional projects aimed at combating child labor in commercial agriculture and the commercial sexual exploitation of children.
HUNGARY
Ratified ILO** conventions 138 and 182.
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There are no confirmed data on child labour.
It is known that many Hungarian young girls are involved in prostitution and pornography. Young girls alured by the dream of rich western life that is imposed by media. And they think that, the easiest way to achieve it is to become apart of the sex industry where they are extremely exploited without achieving any of the dreams they have.
Hungary is a source, transit and destination country for girls trafficked from Eastern European countries for the purposes of commercial sexual expolitation.
INDIA
Not ratified ILO** conventions 138 and 182.
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ILO** estimated that 11.2 percent of children ages 10 to 14 years in India were working in 2002. Though ICFTU estiamates that 60 million children are working in India. Also there are reports indicating that 35 million children between the ages 6-14 are attending the school. (International Confederation of Free Trade Unions, “India: Economic Boom Masks Widespread Child Labour,” Trade Union World No. 6 (October 2004), 2.)
There is bonded or forced child labor in carpet manufacturing and silk weaving. Children work under hazardous conditions in the production of glassware, bidis(cigarettes), fireworks, matches, locks, bricks, footwear, brassware, gem stone polishing, stone-quarrying, leather goods and sporting goods.
Commercial sexual exploitation of children, including child sex tourism, occurs in major cities. It is estimated that between 15 to 40 percent of the prostitutes in India are children. (U.S. Department of State, Country Reports- 2003: India, Section 6f.)
India is a source, destination, and transit country for trafficking of children for the purposes of commercial sexual exploitation and other forms of exploitive labor. Organized crime and police corruption were common factors that contributed to the overall situation of trafficking in India.
ILO-IPEC*** is implementing a USD 40 million multi-year project aimed at eliminating child labor in 10 hazardous sectors in the states of Madhya Pradesh, Maharastra, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, and Delhi.
INDONESIA
Ratified ILO** conventions 138 and 182.
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ILO** estimated that 7.1 percent of children ages 10 to 14 years in Indonesia were working in 2002. Children work in agriculture and in the rattan( crop used for making furniture) and wood furniture, garment, footwear, food processing, toy, fishing, construction, and small-scale mining sectors, shining shoes and scavenging.
The Indonesian government reports that 6 to 12 million Indonesian children are involved in the “worst forms of child labor”, identified as prostitution; child trafficking; fishing; woodworking; street vending; drug trafficking; domestic servitude; employment as porters; work on fishing platforms; in diamond, gold, coal, marble, and sand mines; in transportation; on plantations; at dumpsites; in the footwear industry; and in formal sectors (such as food, cigarette, and canned shrimp production of pornography.
The Free Aceh Movement and some other milita groups recruited children as soldiers. The Free Aceh Movement is known in Indonesia as Gerakan Aceh Merdeka. Both voluntary and forcible recruitment measures are reportedly used by the group. In addition, the Indonesian armed forces have allegedly begun recruiting children although no children are said to serve in government forces. (Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers, Child Soldier Use 2003: A Briefing for the 4th UN Security Council Open Debate on Children and Armed Conflict, 2004 [cited May 10, 2004])
The Government of Indonesia participates in a USDOL* supported ILO-IPEC*** Timebound Program to progressively eliminate the worst forms of child labor. The program is being implemented from 2004-2009 and focuses on five National Action priority sectors: offshore and deep sea fishing, child prostitution, mining, footwear industry and drug trafficking. The USDOL* also launched a new 4-year USD 6 million project in September 2004 to combat child trafficking in Indonesia.
IRAQ
Ratified ILO** conventions 138 and 182.
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UNICEF estimated that 14.0 percent of children ages 5 to 14 years in Iraq were working in 2000.
Children work under hazardous conditions in automobile repair shops, and on construction sites. In rural areas, children herd livestock and perform other agricultural duties.
Anti-government militias, such as Al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army, recruit children as young as ten years old as child soldiers. Children also work in brick factories in Iraq. Children work as vendors of cigarettes, gum, candy, food, soft drinks, pornographic videos, fruit, fuel, used clothes, and junk.
IRELAND
Ratified ILO** conventions 138 and 182.
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There are no confirmed data on child labour.
Children aged between 11-18 are working in agricultural sector and serving houses.
Also some children are known to be begging on the streets.
ISRAEL
Ratified ILO** convention 138 but not ratified ILO** convention 182.
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There are no confirmed data on child labour. But it is known that child labour can be seen among arap population and migrated jewish people.
Many women from EX-Soviet Union Member Countries are trafficked into the country for sexual exploitation which make up of %70 of total that are trafficked. This is a serious problem as these women are getting involved in forced prostitution and even the officials do not admit, it is known that there are girls as young as 12 years which are also trafficked for the sane purposes.
It is said that there a couple of hundred of children involved in prostitution and the state officials insist that unless the social and economic reasons behind the problem is solved child prostitution can be eradicated.
There is an increasing interest in child pornography but the matterial is not produced in the country, it is imported from other countries.
Although it is not based on any official information it is said that IDF(Isreal Defence Force) used 17 year olds as volunteer soldiers.
ITALY
Ratified ILO** conventions 138 and 182.
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It is estimated that there are around 30,000 to 300,000 child labourers. Though the most likely figure is 50,000. Most of them are immigrants but it is possible to find Italian child labourers as well.
According to The Council Of Europe Roma children from former Yugoslavia are smuggled to Italy where they are trained and forced to work in crime rings.
Young girls from Nigeria, Albenia, Eastern Europe and Russian States are trafficked to Italy and forced to work as prostitutes. There are about 8,000 Albanian child prostitutes found working şn the country.
JAMAICA
Ratified ILO** conventions 138 and 182.
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The Statistical Institute of Jamaica estimated that 2.2 percent of children ages 5 to 17 years were working in Jamaica in 2002. children are working in certain sectors like fishing, agriculture, and tourism.
A 2001 study funded by ILO-IPEC*** found that children as young as 10 years old are sexually exploited and engaged in prostitution, catering to tourists. Young girls are hired by “go-go” clubs or massage parlors. Children are trafficked internally for sexual exploitation and pornography.
In 2004, the Government of Jamaica in cooperation with ILO-IPEC*** concluded a 3-year USDOL-funded* national program on child labor.
JAPAN
Ratified ILO** conventions 138 and 182.
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There are no confirmed data on child labour.
Child prostitution and chld pornography exist in the country. Interpol estimated that %80 on internet sites with child pornography originate in Japan and one third of the prostitutes are minors in Japan.
JORDAN
Ratified ILO** conventions 138 and 182.
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ILO** estimated that less than one percent of children ages 10 to 14 years in Jordan were working in 2002. Children work in automobile repair, carpentry, sales, blacksmith shops, tailoring, construction, and food services. In Amman children are selling newspapers, food, and gum. Other children provide income for their families by rummaging through trash dumpsters to find recyclable items.
Many working children are victims of physical, verbal, and sexual abuse in the workplace and are exposed to hazardous chemicals and dangerous working conditions.
KAZAKHSTAN
Ratified ILO** conventions 138 and 182.
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Statistics on working children under the age of 15 in Kazakhstan are unavailable.
Many children work in subsistence agriculture. Children are begging, loading freight, delivering goods in markets, washing cars, and working at gas stations.
Young girls work as prostitutes on the streets, bars and hotels. The Kazakhstan Today News Agency reported that a medical investigation conducted in several cities including Almaty discovered children as young as 10 suffering from sexually transmitted diseases as a result of being sexually abused by tourists.
Kazakhstan is a source, transit, and destination country for trafficking for sexual exploitation and forced labor. Girls in their teens are one of the primary targets for trafficking from Kazakhstan to other countries.
USDOL* is funding a 3-year USD 2.5 million ILO-IPEC*** project that will further build capacity of national institutions to eliminate the worst forms of child labor.
KENYA
Ratified ILO** conventions 138 and 182.
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The Kenyan Central Bureau of Statistics estimated that 15.2 percent of all children ages 5 to 14 years were working in Kenya in 2000. The commercial and subsistence agriculture and fishing sectors employ the largest number of working children followed by the domestic service sector. Children work on tea, coffee, sugar, and rice plantations and in the coastal salt harvesting industry.
Child prostitution in Kenya, occurs in Nairobi and Mombasa. There are also reports of widespread prostitution among girls who hawk or beg by day, and work as prostitutes by night. Girls working in the agricultural sector are reportedly sometimes forced to provide sexual services in order to obtain plantation work. Child prostitution is reported to occur in brothels, massage parlors, streets, bars, and discotheques. The majority of the children are between 13 and 17 years old. (U.S. Department of State, Country Reports- 2003: Kenya, Section 5. )
Kenya participates in a 4-year ILO-IPEC*** regional program funded by USDOL* to withdraw, rehabilitate, and prevent children from engaging in hazardous work in commercial agriculture in East Africa. The government is also taking part in a 3-year USDOL-funded* ILO-IPEC*** regional project aimed at eliminating the worst forms of child labor in Anglophone Africa, and in a USD 5 million USDOL-funded* Timebound Program that will focus on child labor in domestic service; commercial sex; commercial and subsistence agriculture, fisheries and pastoralism; and street working children in informal sectors. (ILOIPEC, Supporting the National Plan of Action for the Elimination of the Worst Forms of Child Labour in Kenya, project document, Geneva, September 30, 2004, vi, 42.)
KYRGYZ REPUBLIC
Ratified ILO** conventions 138 and 182.
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Statistics on the number of working children under the age of 15 in the Kyrgyz Republic are unavailable.
Children work selling goods (such as newspapers, cigarettes and candy), in transportation, loading and unloading goods, collecting aluminum and bottles, begging, cleaning and repairing shoes, washing cars, and selling narcotics. Children work in mines harvest cotton and tobacco.
Children work as prostitutes in urban areas throughout the country. The Kyrgyz Republic is considered to be primarily a country of origin and transit for the trafficking of children. Girls are trafficked for prostitution to the United Arab Emirates, “Turkey”, and South Korea.
LEBANON
Ratified ILO** conventions 138 and 182.
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UNICEF estimated that 45.3 percent of children ages 6 to 14 years in Lebanon were working in 2000. Children are employed in metal works, handicraft and artisan establishments, automobile repair, carpentry, domestic service, commerce, and construction work. Majority of children work in Beqaa and south and north of Lebanon. Children ages 10-15 years are involved in “tobacco” drying, harvesting, and planting; children 5 to 10 years work in seedling transplant and leaf drying; and those under 5 years assist with leaf drying.
There are reports suggesting that child prostitution exists. Also lebanon is a destination for women trafficked from Asia and Eastern European countries forthe purposes of involuntary domestic labor and prostitution.
In 2004, the government began participating in a new USD 3 million ILO-IPEC*** project funded by USDOL* to help support a Timebound program to eliminate the worst forms of child labor.
MACEDONIA
Ratified ILO** conventions 138 and 182.
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ILO** estimated that less than 1 percent of children ages 10 to 14 years in Macedonia were working in 2002. Children work in the informal sector, in illegal small businesses and on the streets and in markets selling cigarettes and other small items.
Girls are involved in commercial sexual exploitation on the streets of Macedonia. Children are trafficked to Macedonia from Moldova, Romania, Bulgaria and Ukraine.
MADAGASCAR
Ratified ILO** conventions 138 and 182.
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UNICEF estimated that 30 percent of children ages 5 to 14 years were working in Madagascar in 2000. Children work in agriculture, cattle herding, domestic service, fishing, salt production, gemstone mining, stone quarries, in bars and night-clubs.
Sex tourism exists in the country especially in the towns by the coast. (U.S. Department of State, Country Reports- 2003: Madagascar, Section 5.)
According to the Government of Madagascar, the worst forms of child labor in Madagascar are: domestic service, stone quarry work, gemstone mining, hazardous and unhealthy work in the rural and urban informal sectors, and the commercial sexual exploitation of children and related activities.
Government is running an ILO-IPEC*** Timebound Program that focuses on eliminating exploitive child labor in domestic service, stone quarry work, gemstone mining, child prostitution, and hazardous and unhealthy work in the rural and urban informal sectors.
MALI
Ratified ILO** conventions 138 and 182.
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ILO** estimated that 49.8 percent of children ages 10 to 14 years in Mali were working in 2002. Children are working in the agricultural sector, in mining and gold washing, and as domestic servants in urban areas. Some children are said to begging on the streets as a part of their religious education.
Mali is a source country for child traffficking. Child trafffickers promise children’s parents for decent work though they sell children to Cote D’Ivorie to work as forced labor in coffee, cotton, and cocoa farms.
There is a USDOL-funded* ILO-IPEC*** project to combat the trafficking of children for exploitive labor in West and Central Africa. The regional child trafficking project now covers Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Gabon, Ghana, Mali, Nigeria, and Togo.
MAURITANIA
Ratified ILO** conventions 138 and 182.
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ILO** estimated that 21.4 percent of children ages 10 to 14 years in Mauritania were working in 2002.
Farming, herding, and fishing are some of the main working fields tha chilren are involved. Some children living with marabouts (members of a Muslim religious and military community, precursors of the Almoravids) are forced to beg, sometimes for over 12 hours a day.
MAURITIUS
Ratified ILO** conventions 138 and 182.
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ILO** estimated that 1.4 percent of children ages 10 to 14 years in Mauritius were working in 2002. On the island of Rodrigues, children reportedly work in homes, on farms, and in shops.
Mauritius has an estimated 2,600 child prostitutes and is a source and destination country for children trafficked for the purpose of commercial sexual exploitation. Children are also trafficked internally for exploitation in the sex tourism industry.
In 1998, the UNICEF/WHO study on commercial sexual exploitation of children indicated that children as young as 13 are engaged in prostitution in several districts. (Ministry of Women, Family Welfare, and Child Development of Mauritius, Report on Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children in Mauritius and Rodrigues, [online] [cited September 27, 2004]; available from http://women.gov.mu/docs/finalrp.rtf.)
MOLDOVA
Ratified ILO** conventions 138 and 182.
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UNICEF estimated that 37.1 percent of children ages 5 to 14 years in Moldova were working in 2000. Children generally work on family farms.
Moldova is considered the primary country of origin in Europe for trafficking of women and children for prostitution to the Middle East, Balkans, and Europe. A December 2003 UN report reveals that Moldovan children are also being trafficked to Russia for begging and to Ukraine for working on farms.
Young women and girls especially in rural areas are promised decent work by the traffickers but after the arrival in the destination country their passports are confiscated and forced to work as prostitutes.
The Government of Moldova is participating in a USDOL-funded* ILO-IPEC*** regional project to combat the trafficking of children for labor and sexual exploitation.(ILO-IPEC, Combating the Trafficking in Children for Labour and Sexual Exploitation in the Balkans and Ukraine, Geneva, September 2003, 10.)
MONGOLIA
Ratified ILO** conventions 138 and 182.
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UNICEF estimated that 36.6 percent of children in Mongolia ages 5 to 14 years were working in 2000. Children herd livestock, sell goods, polish shoes, scavenge for saleable materials, beg, and act as gravediggers. Children also work in informal coal mining and gold mining.
Children are reported to be sexually exploited especially in urban areas in big cities. It is reported that Mongolia is a source and transit point for teenage trafficking victims for the purpose of commercial sexual exploitation.
MOROCCO
Ratified ILO** conventions 138 and 182.
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The Moroccan Statistics Directorate estimated that 11.1 percent of children ages 7 to 14 years in Morocco were working in 2000. The majority of working children can be found in rural areas in the agricultural sector. Children also work in informal textile, carpet, and other manufacturing.
Street children in Morocco engage in diverse forms of work including selling cigarettes, begging and shining shoes.
Some girls are sold by their famlies to traffickers and these girls are adopted by the wealthy families and employed as domestic workers. Girls and boys working as domestic servants and street vendors are increasingly targets of child sex tourism, particularly in the cities of Marrakech and Casablanca.
The government participates in a USDOL-funded* ILO-IPEC*** project in the amount of USD 2 million which aims to strengthen national efforts against the worst forms of child labor in Morocco and to remove and prevent children from work in rural areas of the country.
MOZAMBIQUE
Ratified ILO** conventions 138 and 182.
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ILO** estimated that 31.9 percent of children ages 10 to 14 years in Mozambique were working in 2002. Children work on family farms and in informal work including guarding cars, collecting scrap metal and selling goods in the streets. Many work in “chapas” which are minibus taxis as colectors of tickets and fares. In rural areas, they work on commercial farms picking cotton or tea. Some children are working as domestic servants to pay off their family debts.
The number of children in prostitution is growing particularly in Maputo, Nampula, Beira and along key transportation routes. Many child victims of commercial sexual exploitation have been infected with HIV/AIDS. Street children are reported to suffer from police beatings and sexual abuse.
NEPAL
Ratified ILO** conventions 138 and 182.
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ILO** estimated that 40.8 percent of children ages 10 to 14 years in Nepal were working in 2002. The majority of economically active children participate in the agriculture sector while others work in the service sector, transportation and communication. Throughout the country, children carry heavy loads as short-distance and long-distance porters. Over 10,000 children are estimated to work in stone quarries. Children are engaged in brick making. Children work in the export-oriented carpet industry. They often work under exploitive and hazardous conditions.
The government reported that as many as 200,000 trafficked Nepalese girls are estimated to reside in Indian brothels. A 2001, study found 30 percent of commercial sex workers in Kathmandu were below 18 years old. (U.S. Department of State, Country Reports-2003: Nepal, Section 6f.)
Maoist insurrection groups use children as soldiers in conflict with the Nepalese government. These children are also vulnerable to sexual exploitation.
NICARAGUA
Ratified ILO** conventions 138 and 182.
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The Nicaraguan National Institute of Statistics and Censuses estimated that 9.9 percent of children in Nicaragua ages 5 to 14 years were working in 2000. The majority of working children can be found in agriculture, forestry and fishing. Children also work in hotels and restaurants. Children in agricultre work on coffee, banana, tobacco and sugarcane fields. Children cam also be found in fishing and mining.
Child prostitution is a problem in Nicaragua,( prostitution is legal for 14 years and older) particularly in Managua, port cities, along the Honduran and Costa Rican borders, and near highways. Civil Organisations noted an increase in prostitution among girls as young as 10. (The Protection Project, “Nicaragua,” in Human Rights Report on Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children: Country-by-Country Report on a Contemporary Form of Slavery, 2002; available from http://www.protectionproject.org/main1.htm.)
USDOL* funded ILO-IPEC*** projects include programs for children working in commercial sexual exploitation; on coffee farms; in farming, stockbreeding, and agriculture; and as garbage scavengers.
NIGERIA
Ratified ILO** conventions 138 and 182.
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ILO** estimated that 23.2 percent of children in Nigeria ages 10 to 14 years were working in 2002. Many children work on family farms and fisheries. Children also work on commercial cocoa farms. In urban areas, children work as domestic servants, street hawkers, vendors, beggars, scavengers, shoe shiners, car washers/watchers, and bus conductors.
Commercial sexual exploitation of children occurs in the country. Young girls engage in prostitution. Nigeria is also a country of origin, transit and destination for trafficking of children. Trafficked children are forced to work as domestic servants or prostitutes.
Begging is also a serious problem in the country. The almajiranci system of koran education heavily relies on the income sustained by begging.
Nigeria is running two USDOL-funded* ILO-IPEC*** projects to combat the trafficking of children and to withdraw children from hazardous work in the cocoa sector.
NORWAY
Ratified ILO** conventions 138 and 182.
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There are no confirmed data on child labour.
It is known that agriculture and fishing provide occasional working for many children.
Child prostitution and child pornography is a growing problem in Norway.
PAKISTAN
Ratified ILO** conventions 138 and 182.
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ILO** estimated that 14.4 percent of children ages 10 to 14 years in Pakistan were working in 2002. Majority of the working children are engaged in agricultural activities. Children are also employed in several “hazardous sectors”, including leather tanning, surgical instruments manufacturing, coal mining, deep sea fishing, brick-making and glass bangle manufacturing.
“Bonded” child labor is still reported in Pakistan, most commonly in agriculture, the brick-making industry, mining, and carpet production.
Girls are trafficked into Pakistan, primarily from Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Iran, Burma, Nepal, and Central Asia, for the purposes of sexual exploitation and bonded labor. Boys studying at local “madrassas” (Islamic theological schools) are recruited, often forcibly, as child soldiers to fight with Islamic militants in Afghanistan and Kashmir. Bangladeshi boys trafficked to Pakistan often work in manufacturing and sweatshops. Boys are trafficked from Pakistan to gulf countries as camel jokeys.
ILO-IPEC*** Timebound Program designed to remove and rehabilitate child workers in six identified sectors over the next 5 to 10 years. The activities are glass bangle making, surgical instruments manufacturing, tanneries, coal mining, scavenging, and deep-sea fishing/seafoodprocessing. There are other ILO-IPEC*** projects as well. The two largest of these programs focused on the elimination of child labor in the carpet weaving and soccer ball stitching industries.
PANAMA
Ratified ILO** conventions 138 and 182.
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Panama Statistics Institute estimated that %3,6 of children ages 5-14 were working in 2000. The majority of child labourers are employed in the agricultural sector. Children work especially during the harvest time of sugar cane, coffee, banana, melon and tomatoe.
In urban areas children work as domestic servants, wash cars, collect garbage and carry supermarket bags.
Children trafficked from Colombia and Dominic Republic are forced into prostitution.
Also children trafficked internally are getting involved in prostitution and child pornography.
The government is running a 3 million dolar USDOL* financed ILO-IPEC*** project focused on education since 2004. Another project financed by Canada targeting domestic servants is implemented as well.
PARAGUAY
Ratified ILO** conventions 138 and 182.
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ILO** estimated that %7.9 of children ages 5-14 were working in 2001. The majority of children were working in agriculture and fishing sectors. The rest were working in service and informal sectors.
Some poor families are giving their daughters away as domestic servants in return for their children’s schooling expenses.
Young girls are trafficked to Spain and Argentina for sexual exploitation. And ıt is also reported that young girls are involved in prostitution next to the border areas of Este, Hernandarias and Encarnacion. (U.S. Department of State, Trafficking in Persons Report – 2004: Paraguay, U.S. Department of State, Washington D.C., June 14, 2004; http://www.state.gov/g/tip/rls/tiprpt/2004/33198.htm.)
Children as young as 12 years old are used as soldiers by some armed opposition groups. (Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers, Child Soldiers Global Report 2004, November 17, 2004; http://www.child-soldiers.org/document_get.php?id=835. )
Paraguay is implementing 2 USDOL* funded ILO-IPEC*** projects. These projects aim to help domestic servants and sezually expolited children. Also another ILO-IPEC*** project run by Paraguay is financed by Holland.
PHILLIPINES
Ratified ILO** conventions 138 and 182.
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The Philippine National Statistics Office estimated that 11 percent of children ages 5 to 14 years in the Philippines were working in 2001. The survey found that 2.4 million work under hazardous conditions. Children work in pyrotechnics production, deep-sea fishing, mining and quarrying. Children also work in agricultural sector especailly in sugarcane farms. Many street children beg and scaveng.
Sexual exploitation of children occurs in the country. Children are abused by sex tourists and used in the production of pornographic films. Also domestic servers are proun to sexual exploitation.
Children under the age of 18 are used as soldiers in paramilitary and armed opposition groups such as the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, the Abu Sayyaf Group and the New People’s Army.
A 10.2 million USDOL-funded* Timebound Program is implemented by ILO-IPEC*** and World Vision to eliminate child labor in specified worst forms. The program targets children involved in commercial sexual exploitation, mining and quarrying, pyrotechnics, deep-sea fishing, domestic service, and work on commercial sugar cane farms.
POLAND
Ratified ILO** conventions 138 and 182.
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It is known that there are more than 50,000 children working in the agricultural sector.
Polish young girls are trafficked to West Europe for the purposes of commercial sexual exploitation. This is a growing and a very serious problem as many girls are getting involved in prostitution in the country as well.
PORTUGAL
Ratified ILO** conventions 138 and 182.
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ILO** estimated that there are 6,000 child labourers aged between 10-14 in 2000. This accounts for more than %1,2 of the total children in the same age group. Also there are 4,000 children aged 12-15 who are involved in illegal activities.
ROMANIA
Ratified ILO** conventions 138 and 182.
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The National Institute of Statistics estimated that 2.3 percent of children ages 5 to 14 in Romania were working in 2001. The majority of working children are involved in agriculture. Roma children are begging, washing cars, selling merchandise, performing household work, collecting waste products, loading and unloading merchandise, stealing, and engaging in prostitution.
Prostitution and sexual exploitation of young girls and women are a serious problem in the country. Romania is a country of origin, transit and destination for trafificked children for the purposes of sexual exploitation. Especially girls are from ex- Soviet Union countries are trafficked to middle-east, Europe, Americas and Far East including Japan.
RUSSIA
Ratified ILO** conventions 138 and 182.
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Statistics on the number of working children under the age of 15 in Russia are unavailable. Children work in informal retail services, sell goods on the street, wash cars, make deliveries, collect trash, and beg.
After the fall of Soviet Union, economic and social conditions worsened. The crisis stroke children the most leaving them among the poorest in the country. It is estimated that there 4 million children under the threat of becoming a street children. Street children involve in illegal and dangereous activities such as prostitution and drug dealing.
Young girls are engaged in prostitution, pornography and sex tourism. Many young girls are trafficked to other countries and forced to work as prostitutes. Once they are trafficked to the destination country their passports are confiscated and forced to to have sex with thousands of men just with in a year.
The Government of Russia is participating in the second phase of an ILO-IPEC*** project to rehabilitate working street children in St. Petersburg.
RWANDA
Ratified ILO** conventions 138 and 182.
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UNICEF estimated that 41.8 percent of children between the ages of 5 and 14 years were working in Rwanda in 2000. Children work on tea, rice and sugarcane plantations, in brickyards and sand extraction quarries. Children crush stones and work as domestic servants.
According to the estimates there were 600,000 orphans in Rwanda. Majority of them were orphaned because of HIV. These children are so very vulnerable and carrying a high risk of becoming a sex slave.
The Government of Rwanda no longer recruits children for the official Rwanda Defense Forces (RDF, formerly the Rwanda Patriotic Army, or RPA) though Rwanda-supported rebel groups have continued to recruit child soldiers for combat against armed groups in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Burundi.
The Government is running a USDOL-funded* ILO-IPEC*** program to prevent the involvement of children in armed conflict and support the rehabilitation of former child soldiers.
SENEGAL
Ratified ILO** conventions 138 and 182.
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UNICEF estimated that 40.4 percent of children ages 5 to 14 years were working in Senegal in 2000. Children beg, work as prostitutes, are forced to work in drug trafficking and illegal activities, recycle waste and garbage and slaughter animals. Children carry heavy loads, work in gold minesand stone quarries and work underwater and work with toxic chemicals that are considered the country’s worst forms of child labor.
Senegal is a source and transit country for child trafficking to Europe for sexual exploitation. Talibés (Students of koranic teachers), spend the majority of the day begging for their Koranic teachers and are vulnerable to sexual exploitation.
The Government of Senegal is participating in a USD 2 million USDOL-funded* Timebound Program focused on child labor in agriculture, fishing, begging and domestic service.
SIERRA LEONE
Not ratified ILO** conventions 138 and 182.
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UNICEF estimated that 71.6 percent of children aged 5 to 14 years in Sierra Leone were working in 2000. Children work on family farms and diamond mines. Children also beg in urban areas.
Child trafficking occurs in the country. Children are trafficked to Europe where they are used as domestic servants. Also children trafficked within the country are forced to work on diamond mines.
REPUBLIC of SOUTH AFRICA
Ratified ILO** conventions 138 and 182.
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The Government of South Africa estimated that 32.5 percent of children ages 5 to 14 years were working in 1999. Majority of working children can be found in agriculture or urban informal sector. Children work in commercial agriculture, on subsistence farms and on small farms planting and harvesting vegetables, picking and packing fruit, and cutting flowers.
Sexual exploitation of children occurs and South Africa is a country of origin, transit and destination for child trafficking.
SPAIN
Ratified ILO** conventions 138 and 182.
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There are around 400,000 child labourers in Spain working mainly in agricultural sector and family businesses.
Children work in Hazardous conditions in foot-wear manifacturing and commercial agriculture especailly in tomato farms.
Children are also reported to perform in violance acts within the Basque Seperatist Movement.
SRI LANKA
Ratified ILO** conventions 138 and 182.
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The Sri Lankan Department of Census and Statistics estimated in 1999 that 14.9 percent of children ages 5 to 14 years in Sri Lanka were working. Working Children are mainly employed in agricultural sector. Children are also working in the informal manufacturing, hotel and trade industries and working as craft workers, street peddlers(selling wares on thesidewalk or işporto in Turkish) and domestic servants. Some of the domestic servants might become a victim of debt bondage.
Young girls are engaged in prostitutuion where their customers are locals rather than the tourists. Trafficking within the country occurs though no significant traces of border trafficking.
Child soldiering remains a persistent problem. Children are re-recruited to serve as soldiers by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). Between January 2002 and November 2004, UNICEF documented 4,600 cases of child recruitment by the LTTE.
Government is running an inter-regional ILO-IPEC*** project that provides vocational training and skills development for former child soldiers and the creation of sustainable employment opportunities for children above legal working age.
SUDAN
Ratified ILO** conventions 138 and 182.
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ILO** estimated that 940,000 children ages 10-14 were working in 2002 which accounts for about 27,4% of the same age group.
5,000 Ugandan child soldiers were kept in south of Sudan by LRA(Lord’s Reisitance Army) which is armed opposition group in Uganda. The same group also sold these children or gave them as a gift to the arms traders.
Approximately there are 25,000-32,000 child soldiers currently active in the country . Between 3,000 to 8,000 soldiers are recruited by the Popular Defence Force. 75,000 children were trained as soldiers since 21 june 1997.
SWEDEN
Ratified ILO** conventions 138 and 182.
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There are no confirmed data on child labour.
In 1998 summer, Radde Bernan learnt that 17 children were trained in Northern Sweden by the PKK which were then recrutied as guerillas to fight in south easetrn Turkey. Only three of them returned the others were all missing.
TANZANIA
Ratified ILO** conventions 138 and 182.
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The Tanzanian National Bureau of Statistics estimated that 35.4 percent of children ages 5 to 14 years in Tanzania were working in 2001. Majority of working children are engaged agricultural, forestry and fishing activities.
Children work on commercial tea, coffee, sugar cane, sisal, clove, and tobacco farms, and in the production of wheat and corn. Children also work in underground mines and near mines in bars and restaurants and as domestic servants.
In the informal sector, children are engaged in scavenging, fishing, fish processing, and quarrying. Other children work as barmaids, street vendors, car washers, shoe shiners, cart pushers, carpenters and auto repair mechanics .
Children are reportedly trafficked internally to work in the fishing industry, mines, commercial agriculture, and domestic service. Research published by the Tanzania Media Women”s Association suggests that 60 percent of female domestic servants, or “housegirls”, are “sexually abused” in the workplace. (See Daniel Dickinson, Tanzania ‘housegirls’ face sexual abuse, BBC News, May 10, 2003 [cited May 24, 2004]; available from http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/3015223.stm.) Children are trafficked from rural areas for exploitation in the commercial sex sector. It is reported that girls are trafficked from Tanzania to South Africa, the Middle East, and Europe for the purpose of commercial sexual exploitation. Children are also trafficked from Tanzania for the purpose of forced labor.
THAILAND
Ratified ILO** conventions 138 and 182.
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ILO** estimated that 10.8 percent of children ages 10 to 14 years in Thailand were working in 2002. Children work in the agriculture, construction, manufacturing, commerce, service, fishing and domestic service sectors.
Young girls work as prostitutes in the urban areas. These girls are generally recruited by former experienced prostitutes where their families are being paid. The families sell their daughters knowing that they are going to become prostitutes. Sex tourism is also a very important factor.
Girls trafficked from Burma, China, and Laos for the purposes of commercial sexual exploitation. Also thailandese girls are trafficked to Europe, America, bordering countries and middle east for sexual exploitation. (Christina Wille, Thailand – Lao People’s Democratic Republic and Thailand – Myanmar Border Areas: Trafficking in Children into the Worst Forms of Child Labor: A Rapid Assessment, ILO-IPEC, Geneva, November 2001.)
Thailand is included in an ILO-IPEC*** Sub-Regional Project funded by the United Kingdom through April 2008 to combat trafficking of women and children for exploitive labor in the Mekong sub-region and a USDOL-funded* project to combat the involvement of children in the drug trade.
TOGO
Ratified ILO** conventions 138 and 182.
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UNICEF estimated that 66.2 percent of children ages 5 to 14 years were working in Togo in 2000.
In remote parts of the country, a form of bonded labor occurs in the traditional practice known as ‘trokosi’, where young girls become slaves to priests for offenses allegedly committed by a member of their family.
“Amegbonovei”, a traditional method where children ae placed in rich houses promised that they will be send to school or paid properly in exchange for their domestic service. During this practice generally young girls are raped by the intermediaries and girls are also trafficked as well.
Togo is a country of origin, transit and destination for trafficking. Parents sometimes sell children to traffickers in exchange for bicycles, radios or clothing.( U.S. Department of State, Country Reports- 2003: Togo, Section 6f.)
TUNUSIA
Ratified ILO** conventions 138 and 182.
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UNICEF estimated that 2.1 percent of children ages 5 to 15 years in Tunisia were working in 2002. Children work in rural agriculture and as vendors in urban areas, mainly during school vacations. There are also reports of children working in the handicraft industry under the guise of apprenticeships, and of families placing teenage girls as household domestics.
TURKEY
Ratified ILO** conventions 138 and 182.
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ILO** estimated that 6.7 percent of children between the ages of 10 and 14 years in Turkey were working in 2002. Currently, the government has identified the “worst forms of child labor in Turkey” as children working in the streets, in hazardous industrial sectors, seasonal agricultural work, domestic service and rural labor.
Children work in agriculture, in metal work, woodworking, clothing industries, textiles, leather goods, personal and domestic services, automobile repair, furniture making, hotel and catering, and footwear. A rapid assessment on working street children in 2001 found that street children in the cities of Diyarbakir, Adana, and Istanbul pick through garbage at dumpsites, shine shoes, and sell various goods, among other activities.
Girls are trafficked to Turkey for the purposes of commercial sexual exploitation and domestic service from Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Georgia, Moldova, Romania, and Russia and through the country to Western European destinations.
The government granted 6.2 million dollars for ILO-IPEC*** project aimed at combating the worst forms of child labour- Supporting the Timebound Program for the Elimination of the Worst Forms of Child Labor in Turkey, 2004-2006. The program will include activities in 11 provinces based on the prevalence of priority sectors selected by in-country stakeholders (street work, informal urban economy, and seasonal commercial agriculture). (ILO-IPEC, Combating the Worst Forms of Child Labor (2004 – 2006), cover, 1.)
UGANDA
Ratified ILO** conventions 138 and 182.
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ILO-IPEC*** participation status: *** The Ugandan Bureau of Statistics estimated that 33.9 percent of children in Uganda ages 5 to 14 years were working in 2001. Children work in commercial agriculture and fishing, domestic service and street sales and other activities in the urban informal sector. Children are also victims of commercial sexual exploitation and other hazardous activities.
Children are being abducted and trafficked across the border to Southern Sudan by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). (Human Rights Watch, Abduction of Children in Africa: briefing to the 60th Session of the UN Commission on Human Rights (New York: Human Rights Watch, 2004); available from http://hrw.org/english/docs/2004/01/29/africa7118.htm)
In Uganda alone, about 2 million children under 18 have been orphaned by the HIV/AIDS epidemic and are especially vulnerable to child labor.
Children in Uganda are also involved in armed conflict. During the 18-year conflict in Northern Uganda, the LRA has abducted an estimated 20,000 children for use as soldiers, laborers, and sex slaves. There are also credible reports that a number of children serve in the Uganda People’s Defense Force (UPDF) and Local Defense Units. (Against All Odds: Surviving the War on Adolescents – Promoting the Protection and Capacity of Ugandan and Sudanese Adolescents in Northern Uganda, New York, 2001, 2; available from http://www.womenscommission.org/pdf/ug.pdf.)
UNITED KINGDOM
Ratified ILO** conventions 138 and 182.
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According to surveys conducted %50 of children aged between 13-15 were working in some sort of part time empolyment without any formal registration.
The government estimated that 1,500 women and young girls are tarfficked to UK for the purposes of commercial sexual exploitation from the Eastern Europe and The Balkans, South America, Thailand, Nigeria and Vietnam.
UNITED STATES of AMERICA
Not ratified ILO** convention 138 but ratified ILO** convention 182.
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There are 290,000 estimated child labourers in USA.
The US Department of Justice estimates between 100,000 and 3 million children are involved in child pornography, child prostitution and child trafficking.
UZBEKISTAN
Not ratified ILO** conventions 138 and 182.
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UNICEF estimated that 22.6 percent of children ages 5 to 14 years in Uzbekistan were working in 2003. Children work in agriculture to help with cotton harvests. Children help cultivate rice and raise silk worms in rural areas and work in street vending construction, building materials manufacturing and transportation.
Children are engaged in prostitution in Uzbekistan. Young women and possibly adolescent girls are reportedly trafficked to destinations in the Persian Gulf, Asia, and Europe for the purposes of commercial sexual exploitation. (UNICEF, At a Glance: Uzbekistan – the Big Picture, [online] 2004 [cited May 17, 2004]; available from http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/uzbekistan.html.)
YEMEN
Ratified ILO** conventions 138 and 182.
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The Yemeni Central Statistics Office and Understanding Children’s Work (UCW) estimated that 12 percent of children ages 6 to 14 were working in Yemen in 2002. The majority of children work in agriculture without wages. Children also work as street vendors, beggars, domestic servants, and in the fishing, leather, construction, and automobile repair sectors.
Children are trafficked out of the country to work as street beggars, domestic help, or as camel jockeys in oil rich Gulf States.
There are some reports that children are involved in armed conflicts in the country. Children reportedly participate in ongoing conflicts among tribal groups and in the defense of “Qat” (a mild narcotic found in Yemen) fields. ( Understanding Children’s Work (UCW), Understanding Children’s Work in Yemen, 2. Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers, Child Soldiers: An Overview, London, 2001; available from http://www.childsoldiers.org/cs/childsoldiers.nsf.)
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* USDOL // (United States Department of Labour) Amerikan Çalışma Bakanlığı
** ILO // (International Labour Organization) Uluslararası Çalışma Örgütü
*** ILO-IPEC // (International Labour Organisation- International Programme on Eliminating Child Labour) ILO Çocuk Emeğinin Sona Erdirilmesi Programı